Call for justice for MDC Alliance abductees

THE Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (Walpe) together with WELEAD Trust, Economic Justice for Women Project, Female Prisoners Support Trust, Imba Mukadzi Umuzi Ngumama Trust, Rural Young Women Support Network and women’s rights activists such as Tsitsi Dangarembga recently petitioned the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, the Zimbabwe Gender Commission and the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission over the arrest, abduction, torture and sexual abuse of MDC Alliance leaders Joanah Mamombe (Harare West MP), Netsai Marova and Cecilia Chimbiri by suspected State security agents.

The three were abducted on May 13, 2020 in Harare and were later found at Muchapondwa Business Centre in Bindura South, Mashonaland Central province, May 15, 2020.

Their torture comes against a backdrop of systematic abuse of women’s fundamental human rights by suspected State agents.

The petitioners also wrote letters of concern over gross human rights abuses in Zimbabwe against women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) and activists to Sadc, the African Union and the office of the United Nations (UN) Women executive director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

The petitioners also wrote to President Emmerson Mnangagwa raising concerns over the abuse of women and expressed dismay over the insensitive remarks being made by senior government officials towards victims of suspected State security agents.

A formal complaint against abuse and torture of a Member of Parliament was also lodged by the petitioners to the Inter-Parliamentary Union on behalf of Mamombe.

Walpe, in partnership with the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network, also petitioned the following human rights institutions over gross human rights abuses against WHRDs and activists in Zimbabwe by suspected State security forces: African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, Pan African Human Rights Defenders Network,

UN working group on enforced or involuntary disappearance, special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, UN independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, UN special rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Human Rights Watch, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders and UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

The failure by the Zimbabwean government to bring the perpetrators of violence against WHRDs and activists to book is a cause for concern, hence the appeal to national, regional and international human rights organisations to facilitate for justice through launching independent investigations on the gross human rights violations against the three and many other female victims of state brutality in the country.